Using Cash & Points At Normal Hotels

REMINDER: Starwood 30,000 Point offer ends on Monday, September 3rd! Don’t wait until the last minute to sign up. A full review of the Card can be found here.

In about 2 weeks, I get the “pleasure” of returning to “beautiful” Peoria, IL for a wedding of some friends from College.

Having just got the Starwood Business Card, I think this is the one time I am looking forward to going to a Wedding!

Having to spending money on the Hotel for the Wedding will help me meet the Minimum Spend Requirement and also earn some Starpoints!

I mean isn’t that why people love going to Weddings? So they can earn some Points ; )

Anyways the reason why I am sharing this is because I also volunteered to book the Hotels for all my friends.

I blog about Miles & Points almost daily, but in booking our Hotels (our room with Points, and my Friend’s rooms out of pocket), it never ceases to amaze me what a huge difference spending 10 minutes signing up for a Hotel or Airline Credit Card can make down the line.

To my surprise, there actually is a Starwood property in Peoria, a Four Points By Sheraton!

Since I was booking my Friend’s rooms out of pocket (on my new Starwood Card), I figured I would just pay for a room until I realized that Cash & Points was an option.

I absolutely love SPG Cash & Points but I think many people forget how valuable Starpoints can be at lower end properties like Four Points.

While the ultra luxurious Category 7 Starwood Properties like the St. Regis Aspen are spectacular places to stay at during a vacation, using Cash & Points it would cost you 15,000 Starpoints and $275 a night.

This example below though is particularly perplexing because the Room Rate is $285 while Cash & Points is 15,000 Starpoints and $275 a night…

What is nice about Starwood’s lower end properties like Four Points, is that the Cash & Points Co-Pay is almost the same amount that some Hotels charge you for internet!

In the case of Peoria’s Four Points By Sheraton, it is a Category 2 property.

The Room Rate is $99 a night, however after tax it is closer to $111.

So for the 2 nights we are staying there, my friends will be paying around $222 which is not exactly a small sum.

Thankfully for us, Cash & Points are in fact an option and it is only 1,600 Starpoints + $30 a night!

I have tons of “orphan” Starpoints in various accounts from doing Facebook promotions, etc, so this happens to be the perfect opportunity to use them.

So for only 3,200 Starpoints + $60, we are getting 2 nights at the Four Points Peoria instead of shelling out $222.

While this post is not really glamorous because I am talking about redeeming Starpoints for a Category 2 hotel in Peoria, the ultimate point of this post is still the same.

Regardless if you are using your Starpoints at an extremely high end Hotel or at a basic Hotel in Peoria, getting the SPG Card (or really any Travel Credit Card) will save you a substantial amount of money over the long run.

In our case, it saved us $160 for the weekend which we can now use for something else worthwhile whereas my Friends will have thrown $222 down the drain because they never listened to me when I told them to sign up for a Travel Credit Card…